Prominent anti-Syrian Lebanese editor killed in explosion

A CAR bomb yesterday killed journalist and MP Gibran Tueni, the latest in a string of assassinations of anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon.

A previously unknown group claimed responsibility for the blast, but many quickly accused Damascus in the slaying.

Syria denied being behind the blast, which came the day the UN Security Council received a UN inquiry’s report into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The report said new evidence has reinforced investigators’ belief that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence likely knew about the plot to assassinate Mr Hariri.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said he will ask the UN to set up a new inquiry into Mr Tueni’s killing and to create an international tribunal to try suspects in the Hariri assassination.

“The matter transcends individual assassination and threatens the fate of a people and its future,” he said after an emergency session of his security officials and the cabinet.

The cabinet, however, must approve any new UN probe and it is already sharply divided over requesting an international tribunal in the Hariri assassination, with Syrian allies Hezbollah and Amal opposing it.

Church bells tolled and men wept in the street over the loss of Mr Tueni, the lead columnist and manager of Lebanon’s most respected newspaper, An-Nahar.

Mr Tueni played a major role in the wave of protests that followed Mr Hariri’s death and helped force Syria to withdrawal its troops from Lebanon in April.

A previously unknown group - The Strugglers for the Unity and Freedom in al-Sham, Arabic for historic Greater Syria - claimed responsibility.

The blast hit Mr Tueni, 48, a day after he returned from France, where he had been staying for fear of assassination. He is the fourth prominent anti-Syrian figure in Lebanon to have been killed in a string of 14 bombings that began with the February 14 blast that killed Mr Hariri.